Shopping bag having reinforced top and bottom



y 1962 H. K. STEEN 3,034,699

SHOPPING BAG HAVING REINFORCED TOP AND BOTTOM Filed Sept. 21, 1959 s Sheets-Sheet 1 FIG. I.

: 24 I I 2 59 -l--54 I f 1 s5---L g I i I 50 1 I62 I J -56 I60 l I l 60 1 r I 1 24 g l 1152 I52 152 INVENTOR HARFORD K. STEEN ATT NEYS.

H. K. STEEN May 15, 1962 SHOPPING BAG HAVING REINFORCED TOP AND BOTTOM Filed Sept. 21, 1959 3 Sheets-Sheet 2 INVENTOR HARFORD K. STEEN ATTORNEYS.

H. K. STEEN May 15, 1962 5 Sheets-Sheet 3 Filed Sept. 21, 1959 INVENTOR AT HORNEYS.

3,034,699 SHUTPPHNG BAG HAVTNG REHNFORCED Ti)? AND BOTTQM Harford K. Steen, Newburgh, N.Y., assignor to Interstate Bag Company, Inc, Walden, N.Y., a cerporation of Virginia Filed Sept. 21, 1959, Ser. No. 841,273

2 Claims. ((11. 229-54) This invention relates to shopping bags having handles, and to a novel method employed in the making of such bags. v It is a salient object of the invention to provide a reinforcing band within the mouth of the bag whose upper edge coincides with and is adhered to the upper edge of the bag body throughout the portion of the body which is most vulnerable to tearing, such portion constituting a major part of the mouth perimeter.

It is a further object to provide a reinforcing band within the bag mouth which extends down far enough to cover the handles in the handle zones but not nearly so far in the other zones, and in which the material equivalent to that subtracted in the relatively narrow zones is applied as reinforcement to bottom marginal portions of an adjacent bag.

It is a further object to provide a novel method for achieving the above objects at no extra expense of material, with no slowdown of output, and with essentially the same apparatus as before.

The novel bagis broadly of the type disclosed in United States Patent No. 2,060,451, and is adapted to be made by a generally similar procedure through the use of mechanism of the kind disclosed in United States Patent No. 2,060,450. Individual instrumentalities shown in the patents, or their equivalents, are desirably used in the present method, and the machines in their entireties could be used with minor adaptations, but the novel method is illustratively disclosed herein in connection with present day equipment of Interstate Bag Co. Inc. of Walden, New York, in which the bag material is conveyed bottom end first.

According to the patents referred to, shopping bags are made from a web of suitable paper, the bags being of conventional construction, save for the fact that cord or twine handles are attached by adhesion to the inner faces of the opposite sides of each bag in positions to extend outward beyond the mouth of the bag and desirably in nested relation to one another. The adhered ends of the handles are covered by, and are also adhered to, bag reinforcing patches or a bag reinforcing band.

assists Patented May 15, 1962 2 patch material has been supplied, wide enough to pro duce bands that extend completely around the inner face of the bag month except for the width of the longitudinal seam where the overlapped seam material already provides double thickness and therefore requires nofurther reinforcement.

The reinforcing band thus provided Within thebag mouth has served to oppose the extension into the body of tears which originate at the mouth of the bag. It has been made of uniform width and length, being rectangular in shape. The reinforcing band has been of sufiicient width to extend down below the lower ends The problem of making bags of this kind economically through the use of high speed machinery has been solved according to the above patents by first forming, at blank length intervals, aligned transverse slits in the handle zones of the body web to effect partial severance, then applying the handles to the web below the slits but so that they extend upward across the slits, and then, after tubing, completing the severance without cutting through the handles by effecting supplementary partial cuts in alignment with each aligned pair of slits.

Reinforcing patch material was originally fed from reels, coated with paste in appropriate locations for adhesion to the cord handles, cross perforated at intervals corresponding to the patch height, and applied to appropriate paste covered areas of the body web along with the cord handles, each patch being snapped free of the patch web as it entered the grip of the body feeding rollers.

According to the preferred modern practice, however, instead of supplying two webs of patch material, each of a little more than handle zone width, a single web of of the handle, the width in a typical case being of the order of three inches in a bag blank whose total length is of the order of twenty-two inches.

The practice has been to apply the band with its upper edge evenly disposed below the preliminary slits and the line of the supplemental cuts by a safe amount, say one-quarter to one-half inch. If the patch extended above the top of the bag throughout the length of the patch, it would be impossible to cut it off without drawing the patch out, and it would, therefore, have been impossible to have a continuous successful operation of the machine. The construction described has proved very satisfactory, and bags of this kind have been made and sold, and are being made and sold, in large quantities.

These bags have been subject to the drawback, however, that a narrow, unreinforced, single ply margin is left along the bag mouth, the region of greatest vulnerability to tearing. Tears started at the mouth extend through this single ply margin, and while they are artested and limited by the reinforcing band, the short tears detract materially from the appearance of the bag.

It has been found, moreover, that while the full width of the band is required in the handle zones, a portion of this width can be dispensed with in other areas without substantial impairment of the bag. There is no point, of course, in eliminating a portion of the band only to waste the removed material, but I have found that by severing the reinforcing web along an irregular boundary to provide the full depth in the handle zones and a lesser depth in the other zones, strikingly advantageous results can be realized at no added expense of material, at the same rate of output, and with the use of essentially the same machinery as before.

By severing the reinforcing web between band units along irregular lines of a properly chosen pattern material may be subtracted from the lower margins of one band outside the handle zones and added as protruding strips along the upper margin of the next adjacent band. The band unit thus provided is applied to two adjacent blank lengths of the body web to extend across the lines of the supplemental cuts with the protruding strips along the upper margin adhered to bottom marginal portions of the next blank length of the web.

The primary advantage of this innovation lies in the fact that the material of the strips which cross the lines of severance between blanks is severed with the body material of the bag and therefore necessarily terminates flush with the body material at the mouth of the bag. Since the adhesive is applied continuously to the bag web throughout these areas, the body material is reinforced to the very edge of the mouth, and hence tears cannot even be started under any ordinary conditions.

The secondary advantage of the novel procedure is that the material which laps over onto the bottom marginal portions of the adjacent blank forms important reinforcing strips in the areas of the bottom margins which extend across the bottom of the bag, that is in the very regions in which failure of unreinforced bag bottoms is most likely to occur.

With the notched band, the patch at the handle can be set to align the notch bases completely at the 'toP. Any small variation, up or down, will not affect the operation because the patch is cut through at the top with the rest of the bag and the pre-slit would make no difference at the handle and cause no noticeable defect in appearance, even if it climbed an eighth or quarter of an inch above the top or below the top at that point. Therefore, the entire top, even the patch and handle, would present a much neater appearance inside and outside the bag than does the present straight patch or reinforcement.

Other objects and advantages will herein appear.

In the drawing forming part of this specification,

FIG. 1 is a view in elevation partly broken away of a nearly completed illustrative bag embodying features of the invention;

FIG. 2 is a plan view of the inner side of a complete, unfolded blank of FIG. 1 with the handles and rein-forcing materials attached, fragments of the two involved reinforcing band units, as originally applied but later severed, being shown in broken lines;

FIG. 3 is a fragmentary diagrammatic view showing the body web at successive stages of advance, the line of the supplementary cuts being indicated by arrows in three instances, and actually drawn in one instance as they will be located after tubing; and

FIG. 4 is a view in side elevation showing diagrammatically the progress of the bag making operations through the preslitting, pasting of the body web, and the applying of the handles and the reinforcements.

The bag of the present invention, as has been noted, is generally like the bag of United States Patent No. 2,060,451. The known structure will, therefore, be described briefly, the chief emphasis being reserved for the features of novelty. The same thing is true of the method.

If the nearly completed bag of FIG. 1 were opened along its side seam and fully unfolded, the inner face would be presented to view as shown in FIG. 2. The blank would comprise body panels 12 and 14 running from the upper edge of the blank down to a transverse fold line 24. Twine handles 30 and 32 have their end portions adhesively secured between the body panels 12 and 14, respectively, and a reinforcing band 34 which extends almost completely around the inside of the bag.

The portions of the blank lying below the fold line 24 constitute the bottom-forming material. Longitudinal fold lines 40 and 46 extend through the bottom material and the body material from end to end of the blank.

The bottom is also provided with diagonal fold lines 58, 59, 60 and 61, which extend across the fold line 24 into the body area. The bottom is in all respects conventional, save that reinforcing strips 54, 55 and 56 and small tabs 57, derived from one of the band units 34a, as will be fully explained, are adhered to extreme marginal portions of the bottom.

In the normal manufacture of bags of this class, the handles 30 and 32 are attached to the bag body, in part by direct adhesion, and in part through individual patches or through a common reinforcing band. The prior art band is like the band 34, but has continuous straight parallel upper and lower edges, so that it is of rectangular configuration. Successive bands are cut from the leading end of a web of reinforcing material, the area of the material devoted to each band being obviously the product of the width of the web by the distance that the web is advanced in a cycle.

It is usual first to apply adhesive to the body web in the locations to which the reinforcing transverse band and the handles are to be applied, then to slit the web along transverse slit lines located in the handle zones but spaced slightly from the adhesive and then to apply handles together with the reinforcing band so that the handles cross the slits. The slits extend completely across the handle zones and short distances beyond them so that each bag length can be separated from the web after the application of the handles and the tubing of the leading blank length, by a supplementary partial severance confined to zones which are clear of the handles. The second or supplementary partial severance lines are caused to align substantially with the slits, and to overlap the slits slightly. If they are not quite in alignment, they are at least parallel and in close proximity to one another, so that the paper between the lines can be broken through readily without starting general tears.

In the present instance this practice is generally adhered to, but it is changed in important particulars with the result that important new advantages are realized. The procedure involved in the manufacture of the bag of FIG- URE l is clearly disclosed in FIGURES 3 and 4. The illustrative form of mechanism employed is largely like that of Patent No. 2,060,450, although there are specific differences. Details of the various operating instrumentalities are adequately shown and described in said patent, and since the present invention has to do with the method and product, rather than with the apparatus, the apparatus is illustrated herein in a realistic but purely diagrammatic manner. Reference may be had to Patent 2,060,450 for a detailed illustration of instrumentalities suitable with minor and obvious adaptations for carrying out the procedure described and claimed herein.

A roll 60 of bag material is mounted in the usual way on a rod 62 which is rotatably supported in bearings 64'. The paper web 60 is fed at constant speed around a guide roller 66 and thence past a paste applying roller 68. The roller 68 is supplied with paste from a pan 69 by a' pickup roller 70. A doctor roller '71 limits the thickness of the paste film on the roller 70. An impression roller 72 is opposed to the roller 68. The roller 68 applies transverse paste stripes 74 of irregular shape at bag length intervals to the inner faces of the web 60. The paste stripes 74 are used for securing reinforcing band units 34a to the inner face of the web 60. The shape and dimensions of the stripes at 74 are substantially the same as the shape and dimensions of band 34a but the paste area is desirably limited so that when the band is pressed out the paste will terminate a little short of the edge boundaries of the band unit 34a.

After passing roller 68, the web 60 travels past a roller pair 86, 88, located at a slitting station. The roller 86 carries a male cutting member which acts in cooperation with a female cutting member of the opposed roller 88. The cutting members form two aligned transverse slits 92 which extend across and beyond the longitudinal zones of the web 60 in which the handles 30 and 32 are to be applied. The slits 92 are caused to clear the paste stripes 74 by a small amount, just enough to assure that the slit cutting members will not come in contact with the moist paste on the web.

The paper for forming reinforcing band units 34a is supplied in the form of a web 113 from a reel 112 over the upper roller 114 of a draw roller pair 114, 116, The web passes between rollers 114 and 116 and then between roller 116 and a paste applying roller 118. Roller 118 applies stripes of paste in four narrow zones which are destined to come into contact with the attached ends of the handles 30 and 32, so that there will be adhesion of the handle ends to the band 34 as well as to the body material 60. The paste is supplied from a pan 120 to roller 118 by a pickup roller 122.

After leaving the rollers 116, 118, the web 113 passes between perforating and slitting rollers 124, 126. The rollers 124, 126 form perforated transverse easy tear lines which are later to be divided to form the edges 34b, 34c, 34d, 34e and 34 and longitudinal slits which form edges 34g. The perforated transverse lines which are to define the edges 34c and 34e, are disposed in alignment with one another and extend only across the handle zones, while the perforated transverse lines which are to define the edges 34b, 34a. and 34f, are also disposed in alignment with one another, but at a substantial distance behind 34c and Me of the order, say, of one inch in a band unit whose ex treme length is of the order of four inches, and whose average length is of the order of three inches. It will be apparent that the altered shape of the band unit does not increase the consumption of reinforcing paper, and that it does not involve any waste of material, the material notched out of the leading margin of one band unit being left as integral, protruding strips on the trailing end of the preceding band unit. The irregular band pattern of the present bag requires an altered pattern of the perforating and cutting means and of the rollers 124, 126, themselves, as compared with the corresponding rollers and the cutting means for forming the continuous, straight, perforated, transverse cut of the prior art, but the prior art machine requires only the substitution of perforating rollers 124, 126 with their cutting instrumcntalities for the corresponding. structure already present. The new paste pattern is supplied by an equally simple substitution of a paste supplying roller 68 of suitable pattern.

After leaving the rollers 124, 126, the web 113 has the handles 30 and 32 applied to it and, simultaneously with such application, it and the handles enter the nip of rollers 108, 110, for application to the paste moistened areas of the web 60. The rollers 108, 110 travel at a much higher peripheral speed than the feed rate of the web 113 (the ratio being the same as that of the length of the bag blank to the average lengthwise extent of the band unit 34a as seen in FIG. 2). As soon as the Web 113 enters the nip of rollers 108, 110, the partially severed band at the leading end of the web 113 is pulled asunder or snapped off along the easy tear lines 34b to 34f.

The handle twine 128 is fed from two reels 130 (one shown) through draw rollers 132, 134 and 136, thence between cut-olf rollers 138 and 140 and pinch segment rollers 142, 144 to a handle forming cylinder 146; The cylinder 146 is equipped with handle formers which form handles and deliver them with their cut ends leading between the Webs 60 and 113 on the rollers 108, 110. The band unit 34 extends almost completely across the web 60 but does not run into the longitudinal seam area.

The band-and-handle-equipped web 60 continues forward past a paste nozzle 148, which applies a continuous stripe 74a of paste for forming the longitudinal seam, and passes thence to a tuber 150.

After the tube has been formed, longitudinal slits 152 are made in the bottom area and straight transverse cuts 154 are made in the superposed layers of the bag material. Successive lines of severance are indicated by arrows 154a, 1541; and 154c in FIGURE 3. The cuts 154 indicated at 1540 in FIGURE 3 are, in fact, not made after the leading blank length has been tubed.

It is a primary feature of the invention that the straight transverse supplementary cuts 154 extend not only through the material of the bag web 60, but also through portions of the band unit 34a which are located just above the band unit edges 34c and 342. By this procedure the band unit 34a is divided on the one hand into the band 34 which is adhesively attached to the mouth area of one blank length, and the reinforcing strips 54, 55 and 56 and the tabs 57, which are adhesively attached to the leading, bottom marginal area of an adjacent bag blank.

The point is most strongly emphasized that by this procedure the upper edges of the band 34 along the severance lines 154 are necessarily made coincident with the upper edges of the body panels 12 and 14, and that the adhesive union of band 34 with body panels 12 and 14 is maintained right up to the common boundary.

As an added or supplementary feature, the band 34 includes tongues or tabs 155 in the handle zones which extend downward beyond the handle ends, but are of reduced width in the other zones where the full width of the band is not required for reinforcing purposes. The material omitted at the narrowed zones is not wasted, but forms the strips 54, 55 and 56 for reinforcing the bottom of the adjacent bag blank.

As will be apparent from an examination of FIGURE 1, one wall of the tube is folded away from the other along a transverse fold line 5d, the pentagonal end panels 160 and 162 being simultaneously drawn inward and folded down flat as shown in FIGURE 1. It is apparent that the strip 55 extends along the vertically disposed margin of panel 160 of FIG. 1, and that the strips 54 and 56 extend end to end along the vertically disposed margin of the panel 162 in FIG. 1. It is clear therefore that when the lower tongue 164 is folded upward along the lower segment of fold line 24 and the upper tongue 166 is folded .down along the upper segment of fold line 24, and the parts are adhesively united according to conventional practice, the strips 55 and 5456 will extend completely across the bottom of the bag in parallel relation to one another, and that they will afford important reinforcement for the bottom. As a matter of fact, the reinforcing strips 55 and 54-56 are doubled over at the ends so that in these regions not just one reinforcing ply, but two such plies, are provided.

While a non-gusseted bag has been iliustratively shown and described herein, it will be appreciated that the invention is not limited to non-gusseted bags but is useful in any type of bag which has handles extending beyond the mouth of the bag and which requires reinforcement along the upper margins of the body.

The procedure has been specifically described with reference to a procedure in which the bottom ends of the bag are the leading ends, but it will be readily appreciated that the invention is, in fact, broad enough to cover a procedure in which the upper or mouth ends of the bag are the leading ends.

While a certain preferred embodiment of the invention has been illustrated and described in detail, it is to be understood that changes may be made therein and the invention embodied in other structures. It is not, therefore, the intention to limit the patent to the specific construction illustrated, but to cover the invention broadly in whatever form its principles may be utilized.

I claim:

1. A handled shopping bag comprising, in combination, a body portion having a substantially straight, raw upper edge, flexible looped handles having their ends united with the inner faces of the opposite sides of the bag body in confronting handle zones, and a bottom which, before folding, has a substantially straight, raw lower edge, a reinforcing band extending substantially around the inner face of the mouth of the bag, said band having an irregular lower boundary so that the band is of substantial depth between the handle zones but not of sufi'icient depth to extend below the handle ends, but is of greater depth in the handle zones being there extended to cover the handle ends and being adhesively united almost completely with the handles and the bag body, and, in the zones between handles, terminating in coincidence with the upper edge of the bag body and being consistently adhesively united with the bag body right out to the coincident edges of the band and the bag, and reinforcing strips adhesively united in the zones between handles to the lower margins of the bottom, said strips terminating at their lower edges in coincidence with the lower edges of the bag bottom and being adhesively united with the bottom material right out to said coincident edges, the coincidence of the body and reinforcement edges with one another and with the adhesive at both the mouth and bottom of the bag having a completeness and precision characteristic of the band having been initially made to include the bottom reinforcing strips as integrally protruding strips along its upper boundaries in the zones between handles, continuously adhered to a web of bag material with the protruding strips adhered to bottom marginal areas of one blank length and with the remainder of the band applied to the mouth area of an adjoining bag blank, and then severed through the adhered area along the bases of the protruding strips at one operation with the severance of the bag material.

2. A handled shopping bag comprising, in combination, a body portion having a substantially straight upper edge, flexible looped handles united with the inner faces of the opposite sides of the bag body in confronting handle zones, and a bottom which, before folding, has a substantially straight lower edge, a reinforcing band extending substantially around the inner face of the mouth of the bag, said band, in the handle zones, being of suflicient depth to cover the handle ends and extend below them, and being adhesively united almost completely with the handle ends and the bag body, and, in the zones between handles being of substantial depth but of an insufficient depth to extend even with the lower extremities of the handles, terminating at its upper edge in coincidence with the upper edge of the bag body and consistently adhesively united therewith right out to the coincident edges, and reinforcing strips adhesively united in the zones between handles to the lower margins of the bottom, said strips terminating at their lower edges in coincidence with the lower edges of the bag bottom and being consistently adhesively united with the bottom material right out to said coincident edges.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS Re. 21,228 Steen Oct. 3, 1939 2,060,451 Steen Nov. 10, 1936 2,062,617 Steen Dec. 1, 1936 2,221,617 Steen Nov. 12, 1940 2,346,710 Steen Apr. 18, 1944 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE CERTIFICATE OF CORRECTION Patent. No. 3,034,699 May 15, 1962 Harford K. Steen It is hereby certified that error appears in the above numbered patent requiring correction and that the said Letters Patent should read as corrected below.

Column 5, line 50, after "made" insert until Signed and sealed this 11th day of September 1962.

(SEAL) Attest:

ERNEST w. SWIDER DAVID LADD Attesting Officer Commissioner of Patents 

